


The Truth IV: Bliss

by Viridian5



Series: The Truth [4]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-02-19
Updated: 1999-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:20:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The same old questions with the same old answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truth IV: Bliss

**Author's Note:**

> Concrete Blonde's "Help Me" is the source of all lyrics here.
> 
> Some helpful points from the Te. Beta by Orithain.
> 
> The other stories in the series would be _really_ helpful.

_"I never could play the game._  
You know that all their faces look the same.  
And I won't give up,  
Won't give in.  
You know, I never want to be like them.  
Well, I'm ticking away like time.  
You know, I'm always sick  
And I'm out of my mind.  
You know, I used to know a truth from a lie  
Just by looking in their eyes.  
...  
Help me find my way..."  
\--------------------------------------------------

I'm not insane, no matter what the doctors say. I have just enough memory left to know that I've had to fight the charge before, but I know I'm not insane.

If I stay here, I will be, sooner or later. That or a vegetable. I get force-fed a rainbow of pretty drugs every morning to keep me docile, fogged, forgetful, easily distracted. I spend some mornings so stoned I actually need the wheelchair they move me around in.

Today's not so bad. I could get up and move if I felt like it.

If only I could make myself feel like it.

The sun bathes everything in a thick golden haze; it almost looks like you could touch it. The garden is so green, as green as... someone's eyes. Someone important, someone who inspires a rush of heat and emotion.

Damned drugs. It hurts not knowing who that someone is, but I try to keep it to myself. No luck. Melanie notices and stops brushing my hair. "Brooding again, Ray? You shouldn't; it's a lovely day." Some of the aides enjoy abusing the patients, but Melanie seems to like me.

Agreeing is easier. "It is."

She goes back to brushing my hair. That and the pleasant, afternoon warmth make me want to slide, boneless, down into the chair. I arch into the brush a bit. I'm behaving like... like some small animal. I can't remember the name, and that annoys the hell out of me. I know I know it. I have the image of a graceful, sinuous body cloaked in soft, sable fur. It has green eyes.

_He'd_ moved like that animal. My someone.

I don't know how long I've been here. Days and nights and days... (Maybe it's just a phase / The days and the nights and the nights and days / And all the tossing and turning and churning and burning inside my brain / Or maybe I'm finally insane / But I don't know what I believe anymore...) Every day is like the one before it.

I know they took me prisoner. I think they took me from him. While the drugs don't let me dream--and everyone here says that's a blessing in my case, since they claim I used to have horrible nightmares-- sometimes I get memory flashes of myself. I had a gun and authority. I helped people.

The doctors say I'm deluding myself. They say I was a killer and a thief, a danger to myself and others. Supposedly, that's why they keep me strapped to my bed at night.

Sometimes I'm not sure if I want to remember. The truth sometimes seems like a frightening thing, a beast with claws that tear and teeth that rend. I think it hurt me before. Badly.

"You hair is so pretty, Ray. Your color's growing out, but it looks good."

"What?"

"Your dye job."

I didn't even know. No surprise. "I don't get any mirrors."

"Well, being out in the sun is highlighting it. It's golden brown at the roots to darker brown to red-black to black with red highlights to black with burgundy highlights."

That's right; I dyed it to disguise myself. I just can't remember why I had to.

Wait, my name isn't really "Ray." _He_ gave me that one. My name is really--

"Time for lunch, Ray."

Gone. Like everything else. I fight back tears as she wheels me inside.

******************************************************

Sleep here pulls me down like an undertow into thick, black water and always makes me wake up groggy and dull. But something yanks me up early tonight. I open my eyes to the soft white of the nightlight and pull instinctively at the padded cuffs and straps that bind me to the bed.

_Someone_ is sitting on my chest, straddling me. His callused fingers stroke my cheek, and I lean into the touch. The stark black of his clothing contrasts with the institution's reigning soft colors: beige, lavender, dusty rose, Wedgwood blue, sea foam green. He wears the scents of blood, guns, and violence. His short, dark hair stands up in spikes, but it looks like it would feel wonderful to touch. I think I see tears in his beautiful green eyes--

It's _him_. But I can't remember his name!

When he leans down to kiss me, it sets me on fire. Then he whispers, "Mulder," against my lips.

And shards of memory hit me. It _hurts_, but it's the pain you get when circulation returns to a body part that had been asleep. "Alex? Are you real? I couldn't bear if you weren't--"

"I am." He kissed and ground against me again to prove it. "God, I can't believe I finally found you."

"How long?" I ask. Alex looks away. "How long?"

"Two months."

It drives the breath out of me. Two months. "But you're safe. I got you out."

"Good, you're remembering."

Pieces bobbed to the surface but not fast enough. "But I got you out of where?"

"We went to the head of the Resistance after they'd betrayed me, only to find out that they'd even betrayed their cause. They'd joined up with the Syndicate. Before we gave them what they so richly deserved, they managed to get a call out about me. When Skinner and Scully showed up, they brought a large army with them."

"I-- I remember running, and a door closing too fast for the both of us to get out. I'd shoved you through..."

"After I get you out of here, I'm going to kick your ass for that."

"Sue me for trying to save you."

"You were lucky," Alex whispered into my skin. "If the part of the black ops team with Skinner and Scully had gotten you, it would have been back to the mindwipe and FBI for you."

Things came back to me as he spoke. After all my useless efforts to remember, I only needed him all along. I wanted him to keep talking to me, not just because I loved his voice but because the pieces that came back weren't linked by anything, and the memory holes could swallow me alive.

"That's what happens when your army of goons gets too large and has too many leaders. The ones who took you didn't recognize you." Alex looked... proud. Of me. I almost died as my heart all but burst at the sight. "And even under drugs you held to your silence and new identity. They couldn't get anything other than your new first name out of you."

"I don't remember that, but it doesn't surprise me. After what was done to me, 'Fox Mulder' was a fictional construct anyway. Not the truth." I pulled against my shackles. "Please get me out of here. They're erasing me."

He put a finger to my lips. "Shh. I will." I touched it with the tip of my tongue.

Then I realized. It was his left hand, and it was real. Flesh, and warm. I pulled back, thoughts of shapeshifters and clones tumbling through my mind.

Worse, what if he wasn't real at all? A hallucination? I knew my sanity had its fragile spots...

He noticed my agitation; the drugs left me unable to hide anything. "I pretended to join the Syndicate to get the resources to find you."

"But the arm--"

Alex smiled as he flexed its fingers. "Nanotechnology rebuilt it for me. No reason I can't take everything I can from them."

I knew the concept, and I've seen stranger things. But I was scared. "They know me. They'll find out who I am. If," I realized something that turned my heart to ash in my mouth, "this visit hasn't revealed it to them already."

"I've thought of ways. We can do this."

I had to trust him, but I didn't know if I could. Love him beyond all reason, want him with everything in me, but... Everyone I'd trusted had betrayed me. Everyone.

I couldn't afford to turn down this chance though. I had to get out of here. No matter how pleasant it might be, it was still a prison. If Alex wasn't... wasn't _my_ Alex anymore, I could escape from him later. No matter how much it hurt.

He had already unbuckled my cuffs. I tried not to melt as he massaged my wrists. "I'm the only one who gets to tie you up," he said with a small smile. "Can you walk?"

"I don't know. The drugs--" My brain flew in a frenzy, as if trying to make up for the months of stupor. "Alex, I'm not looking forward to the withdrawal. They let me go without one day a month ago just to let me know how dependent I was."

Alex kissed me again. "I've made plans. I'll take care of everything." He put my slippers on me and pulled me up. "Well?"

"I can't feel my knees, but I can walk."

It would be more accurate to say I let myself be dragged. We kept to the shadows while playing hide and seek with guards and security cameras. I could remember only vaguely all the other times we'd ghosted through a guarded area, but my body remembered, reacting perfectly and reading Alex's every nonverbal cue even if the drugs kept making me stumble. Occasionally we passed a corpse he'd no doubt created on his way in.

Maybe this did make me mentally ill, but it gave me such a powerful feeling of happy nostalgia.

I felt incredible: exhilarated and weightless. My body hummed at his nearness and the sure promise of more later. Maybe... maybe I could even deal with him crossing over to the other side, if that's what he'd done, as long as he didn't betray _me_...

We squeezed out through the hole Alex had cut into the moonlight-gilded fence. He ran and I stumbled until we reached his motorcycle. He handed me a helmet with a wide grin. The way he looked, and the way he looked at me, made me want to pounce on him right there.

I'd missed him without even realizing it. Even when I couldn't remember him, I'd felt such a pang of loss. Now I wanted to touch him and never stop.

I wrapped my arms around him and clung as he drove us away at high speed. The wind sliced through my thin pajamas, but even the pain and intense cold felt welcome. They were life and freedom; they cut away the thick blanketing fog I'd been trapped in.

I leaned closer in to his solid warmth. I was home.

He later led me into an apartment marginally nicer than the ones we'd usually stayed in. Then he took a good look at me and pulled me close. "Your lips are blue, Ray. Why didn't you say anything?"

He started to chafe my hands. With both of his. I pushed the thought away. "I'm fine, Alex. Better than fine."

I kissed his nose and made him smile. He'd never understood my fascination with it. "But it's so cute and small," I'd say, which always made him laugh.

He was so warm he had to be real. As we locked together at the lips and hips, I moaned as I felt his hand stroke up my spine to stop at the nape of my neck and pull me in even closer. He tasted like lemon and gunpowder, sharp and mine.

I reacquainted myself with the scents of blood, gunmetal, and leather after two month's unwilling abstinence. No wonder they'd been able to block him from my mind so completely; nothing in the hospital had been reminiscent of him at all.

They had the smell of blood at the institution, but it hadn't been the same. Stolen in dribs and drabs with needles from unwilling or numbed bodies as the aides slowly drained them to death... It was nothing like the scent or rush or immediacy of gushing blood. Not at all. It didn't have the same richness.

Alex picked me up and sat me on a table before he pulled a knife. He let me stare in fascination at its gleaming perfection before he slit the buttons off the pajama top, then the bottoms. I'd shuddered at the cool almost-kiss of the blade, especially near my cock, but had known better than to move. He tore the pajamas away and sliced off my ID bracelet, stripping away the vestiges of my captivity. I kicked off the slippers. I shivered as I sat naked under his heated gaze.

I ached for him, and he could see it. He licked his lips. But as much as I wished he'd just take me already, I enjoyed the games as much as he did. A little waiting made the eventual getting even better. But I could play too. Ignoring the slight spinning in my head, I lounged back and spread my legs a bit before giving him my best come-hither look, the one that said that no matter what he intended to do next, I was up for it.

Alex kept looking at me like I was the top prize he'd just won at the carnival but also like he was afraid I'd evaporate away at any second. "I kept all your clothing. I even left your rifle disassembled exactly as you had before we'd left," he said. "I knew I'd get you back."

My old clothing and weapons. I could be myself again, _his_ Ray. Because he still wanted me to be and hadn't given up hope. I felt the edge of tears sting my eyes. I couldn't look at him.

He kissed my closed eyelids and murmured, "You're so beautiful." Then he took me in his arms. His arms.

Funny how the second arm seemed so unforgivably unnatural. Almost everyone had them. It was just not a part of my Alex. My Alex could fieldstrip a rifle one-handed faster than anyone had a right to. My Alex could do things to you with the prosthetic hand that the dirtiest-minded porn director couldn't even dream of. My Alex had been physically marked by the pain and sacrifice that had only manifested themselves mentally in me.

I kept telling myself that the arm bothered me, when I knew damned well it was wondering what he'd done, what he'd sold out, to get it.

I sternly told myself to stop thinking about it. That kind of selectivity had gotten me through, alive and mostly sane, years of discrepancies and continuity errors in the lie they'd spun to be my life. Not-thinking would let me keep Alex no matter what the truth was.

The grand irony of it all. After spending most of my life desperately searching for the truth, now that everyone kept shoving it in my face, I really would have appreciated a few well-told lies instead. No more mindwipes necessary, thank you, just give me a few, really well crafted fictions. I knew enough to keep my eyes and mouth shut now. Lie to me, Alex, please...

Irony. I think it was Spider Robinson who once wrote that God was an iron. Someone who killed was a killer, someone who committed irony was an--

"You're thinking again, Ray," Alex said as he nibbled my ear.

"I know, it's a bad habit of mine."

"Look, I took over this faction of the Consortium. I killed my way to the top. I did it for you."

"And I missed it?"

He kissed me deeply. "There will be others. I'm boss now, and I can have whoever I want as my moll. That's you. We can keep on with our original objectives but work on them while on the inside."

I could have Alex _and_ my old quest? It sounded too good to be true. "How can they possibly trust you?"

"They don't. Everyone betrays everyone. If they counted people out for betraying them, there wouldn't be enough people they could use to create a conspiracy. They figure they can better anticipate the ones who've broken faith with them in the past than ostensibly honest people who may or may not be turned." Alex laughed. "You confuse the hell out of them, but I want you, so they can all go to hell if they don't like it. You're safe here, and I'm never going to let them take you away again."

Alex picked me up easily--my appetite had really suffered in the institution, with all the drugs--and brought me over to the bed. As I feverishly unfastened his jeans, I rubbed myself sluttishly against him. After two months of having been all but neutered, not even feeling the urge to touch myself in the depression of imprisonment, I needed him now with a single-minded intensity I wouldn't have thought possible before I'd met him.

My fingers immediately touched his cock, hot and pulsing, dripping. "No underwear?" I gasped. I brought my fingers to my mouth and sucked the flavor of him off them.

He grinned. "I was certain the mission would be a success."

He slicked his fingers and rubbed them together to warm it, but I said, "No, just give it to me, Alex."

I was so relaxed, so ready, that his forefinger glided in smoothly, immediately. The cold of the slick was a shock but a pleasant one, another layer of feeling to go with the pressure. As my nerves sparked, I moaned and spread my legs further. Alex stroked a few more fingers in one at a time. I breathlessly begged him for more and moved my body to help him finger-fuck me. I writhed and moaned shamelessly as his thrusts took me away from myself.

"Oh, God, you're beautiful," Alex gasped.

Alex slid his fingers out and stroked in with his cock on a perfect, knowing glide. He'd remembered exactly how I liked it. As I wrapped my legs around him, I let myself dissolve under the prolonged, leisurely thrusts. He was sheathed in me completely, where he was meant to be. The fullness and hard length of him moving within me made me remember and forget all at once. As he whispered heated endearments in Russian, his slick hand started to pull my cock, occasionally scraping a little with his nails. I was home, and I came shouting his name. He moaned and exploded within me.

Alex leisurely licked me clean, then spooned me against him. His cock rested perfectly against my ass. He kissed the back of my neck and stroked my hair. "At least they took care of your hair. I love the length and colors," he said dreamily.

I smirked through my glow. "I was thinking of shaving it all off."

"If you try it, I'll tie you to a chair until you come to your senses."

"You _do_ love me."

"Damned right, asshole."

I didn't quite trust him, but I didn't trust anyone.

Yet I loved him with everything in me, and that was more than enough.

### End

**NOTE:** I started writing this before Te issued her sarcastically named Dark &amp; Dangerous challenge, but this one began to fit. I'd like to think I managed to write schmoopy, yet dark and dangerous...


End file.
